Plants put on a spurt...
The mini ‘drought’ of late spring ended with heavy rain and gale force winds, welcome for the near empty water butts, but the damaging wind on fresh new growth was not so good. The garden’s reaction to the rain was a massive growth spurt, as the dry soil soaked it up and the plants responded.
The new border is filling up, helped by self-seeding annuals from last year. In the most part I’ve left them be and a cottage garden look is appearing as the seedlings of poppy, pansy, cornflower, nigella, toadflax and godetia fill the gaps.
All the forget-me-nots have been pulled up, with a good shake to ensure new plants for next year. Summer bedding is getting established with begonia ‘Destiny’, a new one for me, used in the front garden in a formal style in the narrow border alongside the lawn. It’ll be interesting to see if it lives up to the descriptions I’ve read.
Other summer annuals, together with geraniums and fuchsias, are used less formally to fill gaps for the cottage-style we have. A few sweet pea flowers have made a welcome appearance, grown up a few canes in a large pot. I’ll need to start feeding them to ensure they don’t run out of steam.
The Washingtonia robusta palm has produced two flower spikes this year and although it has flowered for the last few years, it has never produced seed, so perhaps a little extra cosseting might help this year!
The pond area is looking good with hostas and native iris and plenty of tadpoles evident. Last month, the fence-grown Choisya ternata perfumed the garden, and now it’s the turn of a small, double-flowered rose grown against the opposite fence. It was grown from a few cuttings many years ago, name unknown. I should make the effort to find out! The flower power and scent is excellent.
As a perfect reminder to stake plants before they need it, a solitary red hot poker ( Kniphofia uvaria) made the point by flowering at a very strange angle. It still looks good though.
On the edible side of things, the greenhouse strawberries have cropped deliciously well, the various fig plants (standard, pot and wall-grown) are all carrying decent crops and also the peach. It’s now out of the greenhouse as the threat of leaf curl has diminished. The family apple tree is looking promising and even the greenhouse vine is carrying a much better crop than last year, so tasty times ahead.
A visit to the greenhouse for fresh lettuce is a joy at this time of year and the unmistakable smell of tomatoes growing will soon be followed by the fruit – the rewards of gardening!